


Average

by Lobelia321



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viggo is adrift.  Kiran is in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Average

**Author's Note:**

> Who is Kiran Shah? He is the scale and stunt double for Merry. Strictly speaking, therefore, he is a member of the Fellowship _and_ a hobbit (which should delight all pervy hobbit fanciers). He was born in 1956 and yes, he does write poetry.

TITLE: Average

AUTHOR: Lobelia <lobelia40@yahoo.com>

PAIRING: Viggo Mortensen / Kiran Shah

RATING: R

SUMMARY: Viggo is adrift. Kiran is in love.

FEEDBACK: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!

CONTENT/WARNINGS: RPS. Middle-aged dwarf.

CATEGORY: Weird pairings. Hobbit stand-in.

SPOILERS: _The Two Towers_ , _The Return of the King_

ARCHIVE RIGHTS: Beyond the Fellowship. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.

DISCLAIMERS: This is a work of amateur fiction and poetry pastiche. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Who is Kiran Shah? He is the scale and stunt double for Merry. Strictly speaking, therefore, he is a member of the Fellowship _and_ a hobbit (which should delight all pervy hobbit fanciers). He was born in 1956 and yes, he does write poetry.

[Visual Aids](http://blithesea.net/lobelia/averagepics.html)..

More pics, poems and info at Kiran's website. Just google "littlekiran". (I'm not giving the url here because I don't want the slash to be traceable via a hyperlink.)

More of Viggo's paintings may be viewed [ here ](http://specialrealms.com/VM/painting4.html).

THANK YOU: To Demelza for poems and manly duels. To Snow Dome who provided the stand-ins' names. To Linda for help with the Danish. To Val for sensible posting advice. And to Belinda for a simply wonderful, thoughtful beta.

DEDICATION: For Tamaranth who made me jump over my own shadow for this one.

Posted in the name of [ ORP](http://orp.deep-ice.com).

  


\-----------

1   _Viggo_

  


Night falls on the southern shores of this topsy-turvy land. The last rays of butter-coloured sunshine finger the tops of the alien trees. Foreign birds squawk in the foliage. I have never seen such trees, such skies. The stars are unfamiliar; they revolve in strange brittle cycles. I do recognise some of the constellations from my northern hemisphere, but even those are twisted out of their accustomed shapes. Even the sickle moon points the other way. What should be up is down; what should be left is right.

And what should be right is wrong. I feel wrong. I am not used to this place, to being here, in New Zealand, this new land on the sea. New for me. New, and at the edge of my world. Clinging to the bottom of this round planet as it spirals on its mad orbit through emptiness.

I feel turned upside down. My mind seems to have done a somersault, somewhere in the plane on the way here, somewhere over the Pacific. The vast, still Pacific. _Stillehavet._ But not so still because somewhere south of the tropic of Capricorn, when the jet hit that spot of turbulence, somewhere there my thoughts took a tumble. So now I am upside down and inside out, and nothing feels as it should.

I feel uprooted. I feel thrown back upon myself but I also feel untethered, unmoored. Adrift. By coming to this far-off country, I have cut myself off from all that is familiar. Cut myself off from the outside world. I find it difficult to get a hold of the outside world. I find it difficult to communicate. So I bought this notebook. To keep as a kind of journal and to communicate my own thoughts to myself.

I bought my notebook at that little store down the road last week. One of those little neon-lit 24/7 stores they have here and which, for some strange reason, they call 'dairies', although they sell loads of things, not just milk and butter. And yoghurt. I buy yoghurt there a lot. It's all I seem to be able to eat these days: yoghurt. I eat about twenty tubs a day, twenty of those large tubs. And little else. It flows down easily. I don't need to chew, and I don't need to choke. Nutritious, too. I always buy the organic stuff.

Anyway, that's also where I bought this notebook. It has a cardboard cover and a plasticky, translucent cover on top of the cardboard cover, and spirals down its spine. I can store a pen in the tubular space between the cover and the spirals, along the spine, and that's convenient. But it's taken me a week to write anything in it. It seemed so pristine, it scared me. And now I've sullied it. With this useless tripe.

This useless tripe just spinning around in my own head. No connections to anything else. No connections to anything out there. I need to speak to somebody. I need somebody I can tell things to. Then I wouldn't need to rely on this notebook so much. I need somebody to reach out a hand to me, and then I could take that hand, and maybe that somebody could pull me out of myself and back into the world.

That's what I need. That's what I long for.

  


But there isn't such a somebody. I haven't met that kind of a somebody.

  


Not yet, anyway.

  


\-------------------

2   _Kiran_

  


Brother-dear

I am glad to hear that you got home safely from India and that check-out at Heathrow was not too horrendous. It is also good that you managed to hook up with the Delhi relations but I am sorry that they pestered you about not bringing me along. I hope you told them that I could not possibly get away right now because filming the _Rings_ has only just begun and I will be tied up in New Zealand until the end of next year.

As I told you on the phone last night, I am perfectly well so do not worry about me. Please! I have also seen to the contract with New Line. I faxed it to chacha-uncle on Monday, as you asked me to (Delhi-chacha, that is, not Hull-chacha). Because he knows a great deal about international law, and he showed it to one of his partners as well. He says it's a fairly good contract as far as stunt contracts go, so you don't need to worry about that, either. Really, the way you go on you'd think I was still your little baby brother, not a grizzled middle-aged geezer! Anyway, you can contact Delhi-chacha yourself, if you want, but I assure you I am perfectly happy with the contract as it is, and all the insurance is also in order. But really, dada, how often do I have to tell you: if I'd wanted to spend all my time thinking about insurance and whatnot, I would have gone into the insurance broker business. Yes, I know these things are useful but this is not the be-all and end-all of my job, you know. There is more to life than contracts and insurance deals.

Just a word about my apartment before I tell you a bit about the job. I have been given a nice, spacious flat, quite near the centre of Wellington and within easy driving distance of the studios. But, of course, for much of the time we will be on location, anyway. Luckily, I don't have to share the flat with anyone. I have never liked sharing. So, this flat I have all to myself. Large bedroom, large kitchen-living area. They have been very thoughtful and provided footstools and a stepladder for the kitchen. All in all, I have to say that the organisation has been impressive. I feel well taken care off -- and I am not just saying that to assuage your worries! I have a car, too, a little Toyota Corolla, and I am having it modified for my own use. It might take a while for the adjustments to be put in but there is someone who will chauffeur me around until then -- but more of that in a minute.

I have met some of the other scale and stunt doubles. Fon is here, which is nice -- but you knew she was going to be here, didn't you? She is doing the stunts for one of the other hobbits, Pippin; the actor's name is Billy Boyd. We will be working together for much of the time, Fon and I. Lovely woman, she is, though not at all my type, haha! I don't yet know the Australian and New Zealand contingent that well but there are quite a lot of us, and at least eight little people. I must take care not to get too drawn into the little-people ghetto, however. Remember the consequences of that in Ireland that time? Never again.

I have also met the man I will do most of my body-doubling for. His name is Dominic Monaghan (I copied that spelling from my shooting schedule). He is from England, also. He was in some television series, BBC, but I don't remember ever watching it, Hattie something. Anyway, he is a rather young actor, from up north, but he seems nice enough. I started studying his body movements this week, from reality and from videos. He has never worked with a body-double before, at least not one of short stature! As usual, there is the initial embarrassment to overcome. Not on my part, of course. You know me, haha! But he seems easy enough to work with, very eager to do everything right. All of the actors have been here for a month already; they have been in training. They need it, haha!

One very pleasant old acquaintance turned up: John Rhys-Davies! Do you remember him? We worked together way back, on _Raiders_. We had a scene together, where the monkey is poisoned by the food, if you recall. He is such a lovely man. He remembered me instantly, by name, and greeted me with a clasp of both of my hands in his, and then with a big hug, once he had managed to get himself down on his knees -- he is quite a big man these days and starts huffing easily! I had such a laugh, but he was very good-natured about it. Tonight we are going to have drinks together. He plays Gimli, the main dwarf -- as in mythical dwarf, not real dwarf, like me! So he has a body-double, too, whom I haven't met yet, Brett somebody or other. He -- John, that is -- immediately started talking to me about _Raiders_ , and we had a few good laughs about those old times. Ah yes, we were both so young then, especially me! I can hardly believe that practically twenty years have passed since then. John said I didn't look a day older -- that's the kind of man he is, a real gentleman. "Kiran!" he cried. "Why, you haven't changed a day!" And I said, "Nor have you, John", and winked at him. Oh, we had a good laugh, I can tell you.

John is also the person who is going to drive me around in his car until I get mine fixed up. He very kindly offered; yes, he virtually pressed it on me so I could hardly say no. I know you don't like hearing about me accepting favours and so on but I assure you this is like one friend to another; there is nothing patronising about it.

It is really quite nice, getting settled in and organising everything. I have never been on a shoot this long, and it means that I will be able to get to know the place a bit better. I have bought myself several guidebooks and will start exploring the city as soon as we get some free time. In fact, this weekend, John and I have arranged to visit the Botanic Gardens together and to take a cruise on a ferry across the channel to the South Island.

By the way, I am glad you got me to buy those running shoes before I left! They're coming in very useful now. I like to go jogging when I get the chance; it's good to keep fit. Although we also get personal trainers on set but you know how it is; that's not really all-round fitness.

I am thinking of growing a moustache but will probably not be allowed to, on account of the mask I must wear. Would I not look dashing? I could be the next Raj Kapoor!

Must close now; it's getting late.

  


Much love to everyone else; I will write to Chaitan separately.

  


Yours affectionately,

  


K.

  


\---------------

3   _Viggo_

  


I am not myself tonight. Or rather, I am myself, but that is all I am managing to be. My condition of not being able to go outside myself continues. It is all right for my acting. Work on the film has started in earnest, and in a way, my present state of mind is perfect for the acting.

Nothing distracts me. I don't need the outside world for playing my part. I need only my script and all my little scribbles in the margins, and I need only my shooting schedule, and I'm fine. I can draw everything I need for my part from within myself. Deep within myself. And I don't think I have ever reached so deep within myself. It is making me shudder; it is giving me nightmares, in fact.

What I can't do in this state of being-inside-myself, is to paint. For that, I need to reach outside myself. Acting is drawing upon yourself. Painting is drawing upon the world. If I want to communicate, if I want to reach out to the world and pull it into myself and transform it in paint, I need to feel in touch with the world first. And I don't. The world is out there, I am in here, and anything else is a dream.

Or a nightmare.

  


I have the same one regularly these days. Ever since my first night here in Wellington. It is not even a real nightmare. When I write it down, it appears harmless. But when I dream it, it makes me break out in a sweat. I wake up in the middle of the night, in the horribly small hours -- I don't know why they call them the small hours, it makes me scared just thinking of them as small, as if time diminishes in those hours -- anyway, I wake up and I'm sweating and my heart is beating. I always think, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the heart attack that will kill me. Those are the thoughts one thinks at two in the morning. Small, defeated thoughts for the _small_ hours.

The dream is set on a roller coaster. Or a sort of roller coaster. A huge scaffolding, made up of colourful long metal planks with holes along them, like enormous sets of, what were those engineering things I played with as a kid? Yes, meccano sets. Like an enormous meccano set. These long planks sway and wobble, and in between are bridges, suspended bridges, or roller coaster-like tracks that wind themselves up and around these long poles. The whole thing is somewhere high in the sky. All I see are clouds and a blue, blue sky, pastel blue, nice really. I zoom along the tracks, suspended in some sort of a trolley or cart. I zoom up and down, it's breathtakingly fast, and then I plunge deep, deep, but I always come up again. There's the sense of being followed, of another trolley behind me, hot on my tracks.

Then I wake up. And that is all. It doesn't sound very scary, written down or told aloud. Except I haven't ever told it aloud. There's not really anyone to tell this sort of thing to. Only me. Only me and my small blue notebook.

Aragorn is a bit of a lost character himself. He is a wonderful part to play, but I know that he will not stay lost forever. Soon we'll be filming scenes from the coronation, from the time when he has found his kingly destiny -- and then what? Will I be able to rise to that kingly role? That semblance of mastery? Well, if not, I will have the script and the sets and the costumes to help me along the way.

In fact, I am wearing the costume now. I took home Aragorn's costume and I am sitting here, wearing it, writing in this notebook. I shouldn't be writing and sitting here, I should be eating. I should make or buy myself some supper. Instead, I am subsisting on tubs of yoghurt again. I must take care not to spill any blobs on my page. Oops, there goes one.

Aragorn's costume is wonderful. It is thick and heavy. It has a sort of maroon overcoat, with embroidery on it. I like fingering the material. It is like an outer shell, a carapace. I can curl up inside it. Aragorn's costume keeps me safe. But it also keeps me apart from anything else. It is like thick armour, keeping the world out, keeping me in, but allowing nothing to cross over.

I wish I could be permeable, like one of those microscopic animals. Those animalcules made up of one cell only; they haven't got skins, they've got permeable membranes, and they absorb food and reject waste by osmosis, if I remember that right from school. That's what I want to be able to do: relate to the world by osmosis. I'd like to have that membrane and just swim about the world, taking in things without effort, turning them over and looking at them within myself, and then ejecting them again, changed and transformed by my thoughts.

Instead I sit here, huddled in Aragorn's mantle. Which isn't osmotic at all. Which is thick and water-resistant. World-resistant. Impermeable.

Maybe I should have an affair or something. Maybe that would jolt me out of myself.

  


But with whom? There is nobody, not a single person on this shoot, who is attractive in that way. To me, anyway. To me, in my present, impermeable state.

\-------------

4   _Kiran_

  


Brother-dear

  


I have now been on several trips around the area, and New Zealand is really a very beautiful place. I am so glad to be here! I've been on a number of drives, up the coast and to a forest area called Rimutaka, and up the Hutt Valley which is the valley going up north from Wellington. I will send you photos as soon as they are ready. You will notice that John is also in those photos, you know, John Rhys-Davies, I told you about him. He has been taking me on these outings while I am waiting for my car to be fixed up. John and I also went down to the South Island on the ferry. We were told that you can sometimes see dolphins there but unfortunately, we did not see any. Out of luck!

Have I told you about my map? In a bookshop here, you can buy an upside-down world of the map, and I have bought one and put it up on my living-room wall. Only they don't call it upside-down; they say that it is our maps which are upside-down! On this map, north and south are reversed. New Zealand is right at the top, and then the entire world is below, standing on its head. Britain is fairly much at the bottom, just a tiny tongue-shaped speck. It is an amusing map, but it is also thought-provoking, in a way. It makes me think of the unfairness in the world, and of how the powerful nations impose their own view of the facts onto the rest of the planet. So that Europe is always at the top and at the centre of the universe. Europe and the United States.

Of course, the map also functions as a proper world map. I went through today and spotted all the places I have worked and filmed in, and then the places where I have lived. Well, that made me feel a tiny bit melancholy, especially thinking about Nairobi. Do you think about that time much? It was a good place to grow up in, on the whole. Do you still remember that little shop we used to go to and nag baba-ji into buying us sweets? Having to leave was terrible.

I have written a poem about my thoughts after buying the map:

>   
> __
> 
> History
> 
>   
> 
> 
> He who writes history  
> Writes the story of greed.  
> He who writes the past  
> Writes a tale of conquest.
> 
> The ownership, the open hands  
> That pull and take at nature:  
> All of this is obsolete  
> All of this is obscene
> 
> When this is gone, when we all rule  
> Ourselves and nothing else,  
> Our hearts will burn  
> With the memory of a lost heaven.

Work is getting to be quite strenuous. This week we have been filming a snow scene, set on a mountain pass. Part of the scene will be filmed on location, in a few months, but we have been doing the studio parts. I have spent the last few days in the sound stage with fake snow whirling at me. They have set up a huge fan to give the effect of a snow storm. It is very hot in the studio, of course, but we are all decked out in cloaks and things, and have to pretend to shiver with cold. Also, we don't get to wear protective masks. The crew and camera people are all wearing these small surgical masks but everybody else just gets snow up their noses. It is true that we body-doubles wear quite heavy masks, made to resemble the actors' faces; they are rather uncomfortable but they do afford protection. It is tough on the actors, though. John, especially, was suffering terribly.

We have to struggle through these high mounds of fake snow. The idea is that the snow is too much for the hobbits, and they have to be carried by the men. I am carried by Aragorn, you know, the ranger-guy who later becomes king. Oh, and here's another bit of news: we have a new Aragorn! There was some change-over of actors, I don't really know the details, with the result that a new actor was flown in at the last minute. His name is Veego something; he's not in my schedule yet, I will have to look him up in the revised version. Anyway, this Veego plays Aragorn and gets to carry me around in the snow. He seems like a nice enough fellow. In between takes, a gang of us gathered round to watch him play chess against another of the scale doubles -- now what was that fellow's name again? Very embarrassing, I've forgotten; he is another desi (but I don't know from which part of India)! Maybe that is the reason I forgot! Anyway, whoever it was won the game, and it was very funny to see the two of them have a go at each other about that afterwards. I think we are going to see a revenge match soon!

I didn't watch the whole of the chess game because I was having a good, long conversation with John. He is having terrible problems with his make-up. He has to undergo this arduous process of having his dwarf-face applied every morning, and the make-up is giving him terrible allergies. It really is a trial. I wonder, dada, if you could perhaps send some of that tincture or lotion or whatever it was that Chaitan was talking about? You know, the stuff that Bombay-chachi sent last Diwali? Didn't she say that her neighbour or someone had used it for his eczema, and that it had worked really well?

The snow filming stops tomorrow, and next week we start on the horses. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to that! After filming was over today, I went to the stables to have a look at the horses. Remember that time I wrestled that horse to the ground, rodeo-style? Chaitan took some photos; it was when I still had that afro hairdo, haha!

Anyway, I talked a bit to the wranglers about the riding. I will always be riding double with another average-sized actor, and mostly, in fact, with this Veego man. And what do you know, while I was chatting to the wranglers and checking out the horses, the very man came in, and he was still wearing his costume! The costume looks like a sort of mediaeval knight's tunic, by the way, and he immediately started asking the wranglers all sorts of questions, and then he insisted on mounting one of the horses and going for a test ride. Quite the eccentric.

They didn't let him, of course.

  


It was only after a while that he noticed me, but he smiled immediately and said, "You are Merry, aren't you?" I said yes, and he made a joke about carrying me through the snow, and I made a joke about riding together. It was all very friendly, and he seems nice, if a little over-anxious about his role. I didn't tell you that his costume involves a sword, also, and it was getting in the way of his legs all the time! He kept calling me Merry but I reckon that was because he had forgotten my name and did not want to admit it.

Ah well, nobody ever remembers the stand-ins' names.

  


Perhaps I will start calling him Strider.

  


Yours affectionately,

  


K.

  


\-----------

5   _Viggo_

  


Terrible.

  


Terrible news. Or rather, not news. The news is old but I have only just got it. The review, that is. The terrible review of my show. It came in the post today. The gallery guy sent it, I can't even remember his name.

I can barely re-read it. I can barely focus on the words. But I must, I must, I must. Here are the words. I'll paste them in here. The terrible, terrible words.

>   
> __
> 
> Recent Forgeries.
> 
> Viggo Mortensen is better known for his acting work in such movies as _Witness_ or _Portrait of a Lady_ than for his achievements in the realm of visual art -- and rightly so. His most recent contribution to Los Angeles' art scene has all the hallmarks of a wannabe celebrity cross-over, not much different from Madonna's migration onto the silver screen or David Hasselhoff's efforts as a singer-songwriter. Except, if this is at all possible, with even worse results.
> 
> At first sight, Mortensen's works on canvas offer a pleasant enough array of pretty colours and harmonious shapes. His painting _Pope's Apology_ , for example, would appear to be a competent if rather bland exercise in 1960s monochrome abstraction. One is reminded of the early colour-field painters, with scratch marks reminiscent of post-war Dubuffet. However, closer inspection reveals that this is not a work of abstraction at all; a cross, submerged under striations of pigment, emerges before the attentive spectator's gaze, and this visual trope links the painting, in an all too facile manner, to its rather pretentious title. This is thus little more than illustration or, to invoke the late Clement Greenberg's favourite hobby horse: kitsch.
> 
> As one wanders through the exhibition, matters only get worse. _Sun Losing its Yellow_ is a feeble attempt at nature symbolism filtered through the tired eyes of Elwyn Lynn or Gerhard Richter (who, one hastens to add, did this sort of thing so much better) while _Mute_ has all the attractions of a discounted wallpaper pattern at your local Ikea store. The worst offender to aesthetic sensibilities may be the ambiguously titled _Red_. Lest the hopeful viewer expect the rudiments of political commentary, I hasten to add that _Red_ seems merely to refer to the generously-deployed pigment of the same name or, although one dreads to follow this line of thought, to the trite emotions expressed by Rorschachian colour associations. This, of course, is Bauhaus paedagogics taken to its lowest common denominator. We see a collage-cum-multimedia work: a superimposed face at top left abuts a network of crisscrossed white lines and hovers above body fragments and discarded items of clothing. This mishmash of figuration and abstraction, of the indexical nature of the real and the iconic presence of the oneiric, does not even rise to the level of the naive dabblings of high-school leavers.
> 
> Mortensen has ransacked the treasure chests of the last hundred years of art and come away with a ragbag of disconnected pickings. We see neither an original take on modernism, nor a post-modern deconstruction of its premises, nor even a sincere attempt at self-expression. This reviewer left the exhibition convinced more firmly than ever of the truth of the old adage: Cobbler, stick to your last.

  


There's no name at the end. An anonymous stab in the heart.

  


I know I shouldn't care about this. Sticks and stones. But I feel terrible. I feel dizzy. I feel sick. Something's gone wrong inside me. I wonder if I can go on set tomorrow? If only I'd brought home the Aragorn costume tonight. I just want to wrap myself in that thick maroon coat and go to sleep. Except if I go to sleep I might have that nightmare again.

Why does this even bother me? I get some dud reviews, I get some glowing reviews. Okay, I don't even get that many reviews but still, they shouldn't bother me. I must look up some of these artists that get mentioned. Who's this Clement Greenberg guy, anyway? But shit, I haven't got any of my art books here. Nothing's been shipped yet. Shit, I haven't even _heard_ of some of these people.

Not that it should matter. Art comes from the heart, after all, doesn't it? I don't make my art to please a crowd. And I don't make my art to have an 'original take on modernism' or any of that bullshit. Why should I even bother or know about any of that? The art world is such a pretentious bullshit place, anyway; it's just driven by money. Money and pretentious drivel. It's worse than the fucking movie industry. I don't need it! I have enough here, in my heart, in my _soul_ , to create something that speaks, that says something true.

Except I am not so sure anymore. What is my heart? Where is my soul? It's all drifting apart. I've lost touch. How can I express anything so elusive and shifting? I've lost hold of my world, and now I'm starting to think I never _had_ hold of the world.

I don't know why I haven't seen this review before. And why is it a print-out and not the published version? The show's been over for months and months. Why does this arrive so late? Oh, there's a note in the envelope as well. Didn't even see that.

I have just read the note. It's from the gallery guy. He says this arrived at the gallery; it's from _Art in America_. My God, _Art in America_! They were going to print it back in the winter but then they didn't, but they thought maybe the gallery would be interested, apologies for the delay and so on. Why didn't they end up printing it? I'll just read the back of the note.

I thought I couldn't feel worse but now I do. I've just read the back of the note. The magazine didn't print the review because they didn't think it was important enough. 'Mr Mortensen's show is too average for our journal,' they wrote.

Too average.

  


Average. Mediocre. _Almindelig._

  


I need to eat some yoghurt. I need to take a sleeping tablet.

  


Average. I'm too fucking average.

  


\-----------

6   _Kiran_

  


Brother-dear

  


As you can see, I am enclosing this signed photo of Christopher Lee! Yes, you thought I'd never do it, didn't you? But here it is!

I met him for the first time on set today. He is the one really _famous_ movie star on set. What with so many unknowns or half-knowns, this was a real treat. I knew we were filming with him today (my trusty shooting schedule!) so I had your photo of him with me. You will be proud to hear that I ran up to him immediately to ask for an autograph. As you see, he has signed the photo but you are probably annoyed to see that it is not dedicated to you! When it came to the crunch, I felt too foolish to ask him to dedicate it to my big grown brother, to my dada! I thought it would sound less immature if I said it was for my nephew. So I'm afraid I chickened out, and the photo is now signed, 'To dear Chaitan'. Well, I didn't tell him, of course, that Chaitan is a grown man himself now! Chaitan-ji should be pleased, at any rate.

And tell Chaitan, will you, thanks again from me. It is such a kind idea of him. I didn't even know he was that skilled in web design but to have my own website -- well, I think that would be tip-top smashing. So, thank you!

I have had another run-in with Viggo Mortensen, you know, the actor who is now playing Aragorn. He is not uninteresting. He is half-Danish, half-American, and I found out that he is also an artist and a published poet, which is unusual. I did not ask him directly; I found this out from the other actors. He often sits slightly apart from us lot when we have a shooting break and writes in this notebook that he carries with him. He is probably writing poetry. Well, you can imagine how that interests me.

Today we had another long break waiting around, and this time I sat down near him. He is a solitary type of man. Not that this bothers me, on the contrary; I quite like it because I also like to be on my own at times. As you well know! Anyway, he was sitting apart from everybody else so I sat down near him on an empty stool. I took out my own small notebook and started writing. I don't know why; it is not something I usually do, write on set, although I do like to carry my notebook with me. After a while, I noticed that Viggo was glancing at me very intently. I let him do that for a bit, then I looked up and smiled at him. I have to admit it was a kind of dare, to see if he would remember my name this time. After all, he's been hoicking me around enough! Either on his back or throwing me onto the horse; we are always in each other's arms, one way or another, haha!

And he did remember! He said, "Hello, Kiran", so I was mollified. Except he pronounced it 'Keeren', but then he can't help that, he is half-American. He asked me what I was writing. In a way, I had wanted him to ask that. But when he did ask, I felt a bit embarrassed also, but I finally replied, "I am writing poetry." And he said, "Poetry?", and looked very surprised, and then said, "So do I! I write poetry." And I said, "Of course. I know that. That's why I told you. Otherwise I would have said I was writing a shopping list!"

That was the end of that conversation, for the time being. He had his own notebook on his lap, and I went back to mine but I noticed that he wasn't really writing anything. He was reading his notebook; he kept turning back and reading the same page over and over. I also noticed that he was looking rather glum. In fact, he was looking very glum. So after a few moments, I politely asked him what he was reading. He almost jumped out of his chair! He stuttered and stammered, and then he revealed that it was a review of an exhibition he had had in Los Angeles. It turns out that this review was not very favourable to his art. This is why he was so glum. He seemed very relieved to be able to talk about this. He was in a right state about it too, I can tell you.

But I mean to say: Actors, you know! Sometimes I think I am not working with other professionals but with princesses on their peas. Still, it must be tough to be getting bad reviews. It is one thing I will always be spared so perhaps I shouldn't mock. Nobody ever reviews the body-doubles! People will probably not even know my name after this movie comes out, or bother waiting for the stunt credits to scroll down.

Ah, dada, we have talked about this often. I don't really feel bitter about it any longer, as you know. But sometimes I can't help thinking... well, you know. I am thinking that even a bad review might be better than no review at all. At least with a review you know that somebody has noticed your existence.

Anyway, to distract him I asked Viggo how he liked New Zealand, and he started babbling about how this country is topsy-turvy and how that makes him feel topsy-turvy. So I told him about my upside-down map, and you wouldn't believe how interested he got in that. He got very absorbed in the whole issue of what is up and what is down; he was actually philosophising on the set! I invited him to come and see the map some time.

Because he was feeling so glum I asked if he wanted to go for drinks later on after we wrap for the day. He looked so incredibly pleased, it is difficult to describe.

I am on my way to drinks with him in a few minutes. I have chosen a bar I went to with John last weekend, a very nice bar not far from where I am living. I can walk there.

The reason I am telling you this is just to remind you that my stay here is not all about stunts and insurance and hanging about with the technical crew. I do have other interactions with people as well! And I am not lonely here; I don't know what put that in your head. If I am feeling really isolated, I can always call on the Dunedin relatives, haha!

And there's something else, too. But more about that another time.

  


Just one last thing: Thank you for the eczema tincture you sent! It has proven to be very useful. John came over last night; I was confused as how to prepare it at first; you have to make it up with hot water and such, but once I had mixed it up and applied it to John's skin, it worked wonders. He said it was really very soothing and to thank you a lot and how delighted he would be to meet you one day. And perhaps you will, although I don't know. He is a delightful man. A real gentleman -- or have I told you that already?

Also, thank you so much for your kind comments on the poem I sent you. You know how much this means to me, dada.

Yours affectionately,

  


K.

  


\-----------

7   _Viggo_

  


I've been feeling too maudlin to write anything in this notebook for some time now. I know I shouldn't have given in to those overwrought thoughts but it is difficult with my mind so fragmented. It is difficult to keep on being focused and centred on the whole. I should never have read that review. Why did I?

But slowly things are improving. Slowly, I am beginning to get some sort of a grip. And that's due to... Well, in the first instance, I think it is due to my becoming connected with the place a little more.

We have started outdoor work, and that helps enormously. To work under the open sky, breeze in my hair, and to work with horses, strong supple muscles between my thighs -- that is already so much better. It is making me know my character more intimately, too. He is, at least in Strider-mode, very much an outdoors person. He needs the open horizon and the freedom of the sky. He crushes leaves, he brushes his fingers over freshly-turned earth, he licks stray raindrops from spiderwebs.

I went for a long walk yesterday, in my maroon mantle and my boots. I am starting to recognise the strange, topsy-turvy plant life of this country. I don't know the names of any of the trees or ferns but that doesn't matter. Names don't matter; it's things that matter. I learn to get to know them not by naming them but by touching their bark and inhaling their pungent aroma. I went walking in the hills behind Wellington. Passers-by must have looked at me oddly, I'm sure,what with me wearing my tunic and my sword, but I didn't really notice anybody; I was too absorbed in my walk.

Perhaps this is the beginning of a healing process. Perhaps, step by step, the world will come to reclaim me. First, the mute world of plants; next, the alert world of animals; and finally, oh finally, the love of mankind.

Step by step.

  


Anyway, after my walk in the hill I came back drenched (because it started to rain while I was up there and I'd brought no raingear) and stinking (because I stepped into dog turds). But I can't be too upset; even the dog turds are earthy, healthy signs of the outdoor world, and the rain felt good on my nose and my nape. It felt alive.

Alive is also what I feel when I'm around the horses. That's where we were all day today. I'm exhausted, I reek of horse, I got kicked by that vicious bay, but my body, at least, feels good. It feels worked. It feels pummelled. All the knots and tight spots have been stretched and unwound.

I still feel untethered and adrift in my mind, but my body feels grounded. And that's something. That's a start, surely?

And another thing has happened. An incredible thing.

  


After feeling so terrible, so terribly terrible, after hardly eating, after falling into drug-induced stupours every night because of this stupid review -- which I have now torn out of this notebook and torn into shreds and fed into the gas hob of my kitchen stove -- after all that, this incredible thing has happened to me.

It is difficult to put into words, but it has to do with a person, a human, and a reaching-out into the world, or is it a reaching-out of the world to me?

I feel strangely blessed.

  


It started-- no, it didn't start then but I first noticed it then. I first noticed it when I was sitting on my own, about ten days ago now, during one of the shooting breaks, reading and re-reading those terrible words, and feeling those terrible words poison my heart and my soul over and over again, and draining the hope, and I kept thinking 'average, average.' At first, I didn't even hear anybody coming over or notice anybody sitting down beside me. I was that absorbed and obsessed with myself. Then I suddenly felt a finger on my sleeve. I must have started; I certainly felt startled and I must have looked it, because the person said, "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

It was then that I realised who it was. It was the voice. That lovely, fluid accent. And that rolling, scratchy voice. So I looked up, and of course it was him.

Kiran.

  


I like writing that name so much I will just try it out once more.

  


Kiran.

  


He is one of the hobbit body-doubles. We do a lot of our riding together. He is Indian. As in India-Indian, not as in American-Indian. He's four foot one (he told me that). And he's about my age. He's the body-double for Merry. So he gets to ride with me on my horse. A lot. At least, until we do the fighting scenes. Merry fights on his own steed.

When he touched me, I was so shocked; so shocked to be surprised out of my thoughts that I dropped my notebook. He picked it up and handed it back to me, and then he asked, "What are you reading?"

I looked at him some more, and of course I could never tell anybody what I was reading, what was tormenting my soul. I looked and looked. I looked at those brown, brown eyes, and I looked at that face, the hobbit hood down around his shoulders, mask off, hobbit curls hanging into his forehead. I looked at that smooth square forehead and into those eyes, and the first thing that struck me, really looking at Kiran, were the laughter lines going from the corner of his eyes towards his ears. They say that everyone's responsible for their own face after the age of thirty, and if that is true then Kiran must be one hell of a nice man because his face is so nice.

And then I surprised myself. Because I told him. I told him what I had thought I could never reveal; I told him about the review. I even handed it to him. I had to because when I tried to read him passages, my voice failed and I couldn't go on.

Anyway, Kiran took my book in his hands, with the review pasted in, and he read it through, with me at his side, feeling faint and sick. When he had finished, he shut the book, and then he turned to face me and said, "Why do you keep this?" I stuttered something or other, and then he went on and said, "This is not about you. This is just some arty chappie's opinion, right? I can't even understand most of what he is going on about."

I find it hard to put into words what I felt at that moment. Relief and gratitude flooded my mind. It was the simple kindness of the words, the reaching-out. And the truth of the words, too. Yes, the wisdom of the words. 'This is not about you'-- and I had taken it all to be about me. That whole review had clawed its way straight into my chest, grabbed my heart and wrenched it out of shape. And Kiran reached in and twisted it right back again.

I first met Kiran in the stables, weeks ago. He was there checking out the horses, same as me. It turns out he is a rather accomplished rodeo rider of sorts. I think that's what he was saying. I don't always find it easy to follow his accent. He's been ragging me about the riding, was I up to it and so on. It's all good-natured fun. And he really is surprising on a horse. I got into the habit of lifting him up onto it, not that he needs any help. He's not as light as one might think. He feels quite... He feels very muscular. Which is odd. I shouldn't find it odd; of course, I shouldn't. He's a grown man, after all. It's just, because he's so short... and then, when he's wearing the hobbit costume and the hobbit mask... it's just difficult to think of him as a man. Which he is.

A man.

  


So I lift him up a lot, and today I did the same, and then, at one point, he sort of grinned at me still standing on the ground, and he dug his heels in, and he was off! It was an astounding sight, the tiny man on the back of this huge horse. But he had it under full control. No problems. In fact, he's a much better rider than I am. He should be controlling that horse when we're shooting, not me. He got a ticking-off, too, for wasting time. But he just laughed it off. It seems he's in some sort of competition with one of the other stand-ins, Brett I think, the one who doubles for John as Gimli. So he and Brett and John were standing around, laughing a lot, and I felt a little left out.

Which was interesting. It was interesting to feel left out. It was like an inkling. Like a tiny rootlet of the world that had insinuated itself into my mind. That I should even care.

So I felt all right after that. Another step in the healing process. Slowly, slowly.

  


Except I don't rightly know why I felt left out. Why I cared. I left the set early again; I didn't go into costume but left, taking my maroon coat with me. On the way off set, I turned around and looked and looked but I couldn't see Kiran anywhere. Dozens of people milling about, lots of the doubles, too, but no Kiran.

I'd like to talk to him again. I'd like to talk to him about horseriding. And about New Zealand falling off the bottom of our Earth. And about us, all of us, spinning along on this lonely planet of ours.

I know it's strange. I try not to think about the strangeness of it, about him being short and all that. It shouldn't make a difference, after all, right? We are all human beings, and we are all working together on this movie. And sitting down, as we were, it didn't make such a big difference, anyway. I also keep remembering how I carry him on set. How Aragorn is always carrying a hobbit, and that hobbit tends to be Merry, and Merry is Kiran.

I shiver all over, just thinking about carrying Kiran. I still don't know why.

  


It was then, before we had even started talking, before I had even answered Kiran's question, that I felt a tiny, twitching, tinkling feeling of becoming re-connected. Kiran was doing that. Kiran is re-connecting me with the world around me; he is hacking small holes and incisions into the armour that separates me from the outside. He is chipping away, and he doesn't even know he is doing it. After my first inklings and then the terrible, terrible set-back and the black hole I had retreated into... Now to be feeling the tug of communication again, is a wonder.

It is quite incredible.

  


I feel transported. I feel blessed. I feel humbled.

  


I didn't have my nightmare last night. And ate some fruit today, not only yoghurt.

  


\-------------------

8   _Kiran_

  


Brother-dear

It's been at least two weeks since my last letter and I just want to write one or two things, following on from our phone conversation last night. Dada, I know you only mean to do what's best but this mad plan is not what is best. I assure you it isn't. It would be lovely to see you here but it is much better if you come during one of our shooting holidays, not now at this very busy time and not in such precipitate fashion. You say it is only to visit the Dunedin relatives but you haven't seen them for years; in fact, I don't think you've ever seen them, except for that wizened old great-uncle or whoever he is, who apparently dandled us on his knees back in Kenya. Believe me, I know about the Dunedin clan, and the only reason I haven't yet visited them is because our schedule is fairly much non-stop right now and because Dunedin is at the south end of the South Island, and that is miles and miles away.

I also know that seeing the Dunedin people is not your real reason but that you really want to check up on how I am doing. You kept asking me on the phone, and you thought that my evasive answers were hiding something, some dreadful abuse or racism or whatnot, but can I just assure you again and a thousand times that this is not so! This is not like that time in Tunisia. And anyway, that was decades ago and I was too young to understand what was really going on.

So, all right, I will tell you why I was being evasive. I didn't really want to divulge the reason and you must promise not to tell anyone else, even Chaitan. Please!

It is not a very complicated reason. I'm not quite sure how to put this. It is just that I am becoming involved with someone.

  


And really, that is all I want to say about that. It is a private matter, really. I may tell you a bit more about it later but not over the phone. It is likely that it will all come to nothing, anyway. It is just one of those on-set things, and that is fine by me.

And dada, that is all I want to say about that right now. Please don't go pestering me with more phone calls at all sorts of inappropriate hours of the early morning. In fact, from now on I will unplug my phone before I go to bed!

Anyway, now for some other news. Work goes on and, as I have mentioned, it is a very busy time. I am now working very closely with Dominic, you know, the actor I am doubling for. Everyone around here calls him Dom for short. He has got used to me now, and we do have some laughs together. The other day, I was imitating the way he walks, and we were all in stitches, including Dom. He then started doing various movements to see if I could mimic them, and after that I told him that it was now his turn and that he had to imitate me. I started out by just doing a bit of walking and swaggering and so on, and he was really rather good at being my body-double, I have to say! If I am ever called upon to play an average-sized person, remind me to ask for Dom as my stand-in, haha! But then I couldn't resist doing a cartwheel and a back-flip and a bit of walking on my hands. Of course, he couldn't follow that at all, and we fell about laughing. This was at lunchtime, in one of those tents where we have our mid-day meal.

I have also gone out for a few drinks in the evenings with Viggo, you know, the actor who also writes poems. It has been rather interesting for me to talk to somebody else about poetry; I don't get much opportunity to do that on most sets. Especially with the stunt lot, they are all mostly into action sports and suchlike. Anyway, I have been reading him a few of my poems; it really has been very gratifying. I would like to read his poems as well but he has been in a sort of depression or something, he says, and hasn't written anything recently.

You mentioned _Kuch Kuch Hota Hai_ to me over the phone. Well, it was showing here at some art-house cinema late last Friday, so a group of us trooped down there to see it. Who was there? Well, the desis, of course, not that there are that many on set, just some of the other scale-doubles, Bhoja (I mentioned him to you on the phone, he does Sam the hobbit), Indravadam, and Fon came along also, although she is from the Philippines, of course. And we took Brett Beattie who does Gimli the dwarf, he really is another very nice fellow. I don't know what he made of the movie! He had never seen a Bollywood film before. Remember when we saw it together, last year in London? I enjoyed it enormously again. Kajol is just wonderful in it; she must be the most beautiful lady on the planet. And Salman Khan is a true movie hero of the old school! We were all humming the tunes as we came out. I would love to work on one of those films one day but I hear that the pay is not very good.

I think the other patrons of the cinema didn't quite know what to make of us! A whole gang of little people storming their movie theatre!

John has been over here again a few times, by the way, for more tincture-application. I want to say thank you again for sending that stuff. Perhaps you could send a replenishment?

I also enclose, finally, those photos I promised you plus some more recent ones. I have labelled them on the back. The big guy in the photos is John, of course. Sorry, there is also a wobbly one; it is a bit out of focus because I was sitting on John's shoulders at the time when I took the picture. But I am sending it anyway because I wanted you to see what the harbour of Wellington looks like seen from above the city. The stripe of green on the horizon is the South Island. It is very beautiful; I hope the photos give you some idea.

I would love to send you photos of the set but, as you know, we are not allowed even to take any, let alone send them to friends and relatives. That, too, was in my contract! There is a professional photographer who lurks around the place; he is on the 'Making of...' production team. So, no doubt, you will soon see me in all my splendour as Merry!

And please don't get into a state about that other thing I mentioned.

Yours affectionately, as ever,

  


K.

\--------------

9   _Viggo_

  


I went out for drinks with Kiran; he asked me, actually. It's no the first time he's asked me, either. He knows to say just the right things. We didn't talk all that much in the pub; we didn't need to. Maybe it is an Asian thing. Maybe it is part of that Asian folkloric wisdom, about knowing when to speak and knowing when to be silent. About knowing when to centre yourself in that quiet place within your heart. Kiran knows how to do that, and I am learning from him.

I didn't have the nightmare last night. Instead, I had another sort of dream. I'm not sure I can write it down, even in the privacy of this notebook. But I am thinking of it, and I go hot and cold all over with the memory. The dream had Kiran in it, and me, and we weren't wearing clothes.

I keep thinking about him.

  


I can't help myself. He moves through my brain. Through my waking thoughts. Through my sleeping thoughts as well. I can't help writing about him, writing words and reams in this notebook. Writing his name:

Kiran.

  


And the way he pronounces it. We had a conversation about pronunciation yesterday. He was very patient with me and said I had got his name almost right. And then he tried saying Viggo the Danish way, didn't get it, of course, noone ever does, but the way he ended up pronouncing it... it just made my insides shake. Vee-yo. He has the loveliest voice.

I ran into him the other day, not on set, but out in the hills. I was there again, walking, without my costume that time, and who should come rounding the corner of the path but Kiran? He was in his tracksuit and sneakers, out jogging. So we walked along together for a bit, very companionably, being silent but also talking about this and that. New Zealand, the world, India. He has never really lived there, only for a brief period when he was very young. He grew up in Africa. But his mother tongue is Gujarati -- I'm not even sure how to spell that or what exactly it is. I know so little about India! I must buy a book or something. I must learn to meditate.

I'm just so fascinated by everything about him. I told him so, too. I finally took heart and a deep breath and told him so. And what he replied, just blew me away. He just laughed, in that low mellow laugh of his, and waved his hand, and said, "I'm nothing special, you know. I'm just an average guy."

An average guy!

  


But you're not, Kiran. You're not. The very fact that you embrace averageness shows that you're not. You are extraordinary.

Not much surprises me. Sometimes, in these past weeks, I have thought that I could never be surprised again, that the time for surprise and wonder has passed. But he surprises me.

I have written a poem about him. It is the first thing I have written in a long, long time. It feels wonderful to be able to write again.

> When you pass, I feel the heat of you  
> Like a wind from the East  
> Bringing spices and whispered myths:  
> A call to prayer, to bend in praise.  
> Mystical magic; the man from afar  
> Who rustles like dyed silk in the breeze  
> And disappears like a song into the air.  
> Such mystery cannot last.  
> I think of it still.

  


 

I am getting so excited by all of this. Strangely excited. By him, and by what he makes me feel. The tiny flicker of reaching out, the flicker of the world in my heart. And in a strange, in a really strange, unaccountably strange way, I feel also... well, sexually excited. As if getting reconnected to the world has also made me connect in a new way to myself. As if something was being awoken. And he woke it up. And that is not so strange, is it? It is not so strange that our hearts and our minds and our bodies should all be joined up, and that what happens to the one, happens to the others as well.

It is my body that is of this world most. And it is through my body that I will find my way back to the world.

He is re-connecting me to the world, and what is wrong with my body going along with it? Nothing. How can the soul and the heart and the body be separated? It is all one, and as soon as my heart and my soul started to wake up to the world again, so did my body. It craves contact, it desires communion.

Yet it continues to be a daily surprise to me. Every morning, every evening, I marvel at it and look at Kiran on set, marvelling. I cannot believe the perfection of him, the unusual perfection. Four foot one -- that is his height; he's rather proud of it, it's a kind of professional qualification or job certificate for a stunt double, it seems. To me, it is simply... a magic number. I think about it and about all it implies. I think about how our bodies would fit together, all the permutations, all the possibilities. I remember the feel of him in my arms and then I imagine what it would be like really to hug him. To embrace him. The height of a child but the body of a man. The breath of a man, the hair of a man. The... well, I hardly dare to imagine it but I do, anyway, and it sends shivers through me: the cock of a man. I am shivering right now, just writing it down. Just thinking these thoughts takes my breath away, it gives me a constricted feeling in my chest, and it gives me a hard-on like I haven't had in months. It seems impossibly daring. Yet why not? Why not him? And why not me? And why shouldn't I be able to... touch him? And what would that be like, not like a child, surely? I can't imagine. I simply don't know.

So many things I don't know. So many things I don't know about him.

  


So many things to discover.

  


I have to stop writing for now. I need both hands for this.

  


\------------

10   _Kiran_

  


Brother-dear

You will be pleased to hear that my car has finally arrived! All the modifications have been made, everything works beautifully. The first thing I did was to go for a little spin just outside of Wellington, up the coast to a place called Otaki Beach. John came along; I wanted to pay him back for all his kind chauffeuring favours. He was very impressed with the way they rigged up the car. It's a good little car, too; it's great on hills, which is important in Wellington.

Soon we are due to leave Wellington and shoot on location in various places. I am looking forward to getting to know other parts of this beautiful country. At some point we will be shooting down in the South Island and maybe there will finally be an opportunity to hook up with the Dunedin people. Really, dada, they are actually starting to be a bit of a bloody nuisance the way they think they own me and ring up all the time, pestering me for this and that. I think they quite like the idea of being connected to someone on the famous movie set but it is really a bit too tedious. Well, you've heard me on the subject before.

Dom continues to be a pleasure to work with. He is fairly easy-going, and it helps, too, that Peter (you know, our wonderful director) likes to shoot scenes in sequence. So, even if it means switching back and forth between Dom and me in a scene, he will film it that way. This means, for example, that if there is a scene where Dom talks to Viggo, Peter will not film all the Dom scenes first and then all the Viggo-and-me scenes. Instead, Dom gets to speak directly to Viggo (while the camera is on him), then Viggo gets to speak to me, and I will be standing in front, with my back facing the camera. It is a good system because it preserves the continuity. The actors all like it, they say it helps them to get into the scene and into the characters. I like it, too, because it really involves us doubles in the action and in the emotion. It is also easier to duplicate body movements or to film retakes, if it is all done in sequence. Remember what a mess _Titanic_ was in this respect? That movie was such a stunt nightmare! The organisation here is much, much better.

Something funny happened a few days ago: I was coming out of make-up, just walking along, doing the Merry-walk actually, when I heard a loud yelp. It was Dom! He'd been sitting around, thinking about something else, and when he looked up he got a shock because he was looking into his own face! Not really, of course, because it was only my mask. "Oh, my god," he said, "you really gave me a fright there."

Today, there was quite a bit of horse commotion. We were doing a number of riding scenes, including a few with me and Viggo. I couldn't help but show off a little, it was really for the benefit of Brett and John as much as anything else. They were over to one side, laughing and making remarks, so, with Viggo behind me, I did my Rudolph-Valentino number. I can tell you, that caused quite a stir! But it was assuredly worth it. The wranglers got in a tizz, of course -- they always do.

Anyway, this led to a lot of discussion among the stunts. It was the usual debate about actors doing their own stunts. We scale-stunts don't really have that problem; after all, how are the actors going to do their own stunts if they're about twice as tall as they should be? They couldn't do their own stunts if they wanted to. They're just too big, haha! But there are actors who are not playing hobbits or dwarfs and so do not need scale-doubles, and some of them are very keen to do their own stunts. It is the old problem, and just as controversial as usual. You know my position on this, dada, I don't really care, but then I am not an average-sized stuntman, and they get in a complete lather about it. I think in the really difficult bits, the producers will never allow it but there was a lot of muttering among the stunts today, anyway, about actors getting above themselves and being unprofessional and getting the unions in on this, and so on.

In the end, it looks as if their grumbling was not entirely misplaced because the day ended in an accident. The actor who plays the elf Legolas (I think I mentioned him on the phone, he is another English guy, very young and thinks he knows all about riding) -- anyway, he was having to ride down this gully with Brett behind him. Brett does Gimli, if you remember. And I don't know what happened, we were all there watching but either the horse got over-excited or the guy didn't know how to manage the horse properly or who knows what. In any event, we heard him shouting, "Lean back! Lean back!", and the next thing, the horse was stumbling, and both of the guys just flew off her back and landed on a rock to the side.

There was a fair bit of shouting, and wranglers and people running everywhere. Nothing happened to Brett, luckily, but the other actor broke a rib and had to be taken off to hospital. You can imagine how that accident inflamed the stunts all over again! Now they're all clamouring for tighter regulations and whatnot. Well, it's not as if stuntmen never make mistakes, either! This has also messed up the shooting schedule quite a bit because we are now minus one major actor.

It made me feel a bit bad about doing those horse shenanigans earlier. But Brett said that wouldn't have made a difference -- the horse got out of control.

Thank you very much, also, for the replenished tincture. It has really helped John no end with his allergy problem.

I have written to Chaitan separately but tell him that I would be delighted if you could both come out for a visit around Easter. I will phone about the dates. John will not be here, he is going home to Wales for the break, so you will not be able to meet him.

Finally, I know you think I am skirting around this issue but I really do not wish to talk about my personal affairs any more than I already have. Let me just assure you again that I am perfectly happy with the state of things as they are, and that no, I am not about to pursue any kind of love match and get married, haha. But seriously, I do appreciate that you have been tactful about this; there is no need for the whole family to know, after all. Sometimes I think we make a bit too much of these things in our family. Not every detail of everyone's life needs to be aired and discussed. This particular detail is just about me and the other person involved, and that's it, and that's the way I would like it to stay.

I know that you understand, dada, really, despite all your blustering.

As ever, yours affectionately,

  


K.

  


\-----------

11   _Viggo_

  


I can barely breathe. I am to go over to Kiran's place tonight. I don't know why but it makes me feel breathless and weightless. I feel flustered, full of inner bubbles, like champagne. This is like a roller coaster of emotions. Not the breathless terror of the roller coaster of my nightmare. This is a different kind of wild ride, a ride of joy and anticipation.

  


I leave the house in half an hour. I dare not... I dare not think of what might be but only of what will be. And what will be is that I will see the door open on his impish smile and that I will see his pensive face as he looks down and concentrates... on what? I cannot imagine.

There are many things I cannot imagine. Dare not imagine. Yet why not? Why shouldn't they be imaginable? The strangest things happen, and are allowed to exist. The other day I saw a woman in a wheelchair kiss a black man, a passionate kiss. Not that it is the same at all, not that it is even comparable, no. I must not entertain such mad analogies. Kiran is... after all, he is just a man. Like we all are.

Just a man.

  


And then I think of the way he controlled that horse. One minute he was leaning back against me, limber and relaxed, a small bundle of hobbit huddling against my chest. The next moment, he was taut as a bow, every muscle straining, his back rippling against me and his legs flexing against my thighs; he lifted off the saddle, he flicked those reins, and that horse reared up as if commanded by the king himself.

I felt a rush of... of something. I wanted to hold on but I also wanted to let go and fly or fall. I wanted to laugh. I thought that horse might jump straight to the moon. But instead it just came down again, and I was breathless, as I am now. Breathlessly clutching onto Kiran's hips, clutching onto my sense of self but it was all over the place. I had given myself up to the moment and to the horse and to my little Merry.

I am not Aragorn now. I have put on my chequered flannel shirt. It hugs me softly; it will do. It makes me look slim but not too tall. I don't want to look too tall. I don't want to feel tall. I want to feel small, small and humble.

I will leave now, I don't want to be late.

  


***

I've just come back from Kiran's place.

  


I am not myself.

  


No, that is wrong. I have never been more myself. But it is a self I don't yet know. It's a self that I'm only just discovering and that's why it feels as if it weren't my self. My own self. But it is.

Things happened.

  


Not the ones I wanted to happen but others.

  


I'll try to collect my scattered wits.

  


I arrived. Everything was just as I'd wished and hoped. Kiran's smiling face at the door: exactly as I'd anticipated. Kiran's pensive face as he gazed at his map, the topsy-turvy map, as topsy-turvy as my stomach felt as I stood near him. As topsy-turvy as my thoughts and my heart. Kiran's finger on the paper as he traced his life for me, his life on this small earth of ours.

Then he offered me tea, and I said yes. Of course, tea, Indian tea, the leaves of Darjeeling and the slopes of rainforest mountains. But it turned out to be just Lipton's, after all.

"So, you're an expatriate," I said, "just like me."

  


Just like me. God, how it thrilled me to say those words. And it wasn't only our shared expatriate existence I meant. I must've looked at him with hunger in my eyes and more meaning than even I cared to explain, because he shifted strangely, and then he sat down, sat right next to me on the couch, God, knees touching, and looked up at me, with that tilt of his chin, and said,

"Yes, I'm an ABCD."

  


"What?" I said. I asked what that meant, ABCD, and he said it means 'African-born confused desi', and that a desi is a native of India but that he, Kiran, sees himself more of a citizen of the whole world, really. Yes, I wanted to cry out, yes, me too, but I found I couldn't speak, and my tea cup shook in my hand, my cup on its saucer.

"Sugar?" he asked. And I thought, yes, sugar, I want to taste the sugar of your lips. But I didn't speak, I only thought it and thought about how I might use those lines in a poem. Sugar of your lips, sweetness of your mouth. Or how I might use sugar in a painting, mix it up with the pigment, make the paint gritty and sticky and sweet, crunch it onto the canvas, smear it around the sides of the stretcher. Sugarsweet.

I asked him something else, I can't even recall what, I just wanted to watch him for signs, signs of reciprocation. And it did seem to me, yes, that he was somewhat breathless, that he was flushed, that he was a shade darker under that wondrous wheaten complexion of his, and a smell of aftershave came off him, like the aroma off a tropical tree, and I drowned in the sensations.

It was then that I spilled some of my tea. It must've been my hand, shaking with emotion. I felt... I wasn't curled up any more. I felt connected on all levels. I felt immersed, submerged, at one with the world, as if the world was throbbing through me. The churning of my stomach was mimicking the revolution of the earth as it turned upon its axis, gravity was making my heart heavy, the pull of the moon was swelling the tides of my blood.

Tea, tea everywhere. A big hot stain on my thigh. Soaking in, spreading through the cotton fibres. And Kiran... Kiran who fetched a cloth from somewhere and who started wiping my thigh, with his cloth. With his hand. Saying something but all I could take in was the feel and sight of his hand, a strong capable hand; small yes, but the hand of a man, with creases on the knuckles and a vein snaking its delta-way across the back and a network of tiny lines knitting the skin together. A mature hand. A hand my age. A hand that's touched things.

"Kiran," I said.

  


He stopped wiping and looked up but he didn't take away his hand. Oh no, he left his hand on my thigh, just left it resting there, his fingers digging into my flesh just ever so slightly. He looked at me and lifted his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead in the process. I looked at his eyebrows, at their curves echoing the smooth curve of his upper lip, the lines at the sides of his nose like an invitation.

I don't know who initiated it but our lips touched, and then I was kissing Kiran.

  


His lips were on mine, and my lips were on his. Sugarsweet. His hand continued on my thigh, and I had to bend down to get at him properly, but then I wrapped my arm around his waist and sighed, and he kept one hand on the side of my neck, and that's how we stayed for I don't know how long. Forever, I could have stayed like that forever, kissing and kissing, and then kissing some more.

And what a sweet thing is a kiss. What a beautiful, pure moment of joy it can be. What a multitude of tastes and flavours and emotions it may release. It may release the entire world. The whole world was contained in our kiss. I stopped feeling isolated. Kiran's kiss ripped me open. The carapace tore asunder, everything came spilling out, everything I'd been curling up within myself. I could feel it spilling into Kiran and into the world, and the world came spilling into me. I wanted to laugh, but I didn't want to give up the kiss. Instead, I just opened my mouth and swallowed his tongue. Our tongues played with each other. Oh it is indescribable what we did.

Kiran moved, at one point; he climbed into my lap, he knelt over me, with his legs on either side of my waist, and I leaned back against the couch, and that way we fitted together perfectly. Perfect bodies. Different yet the same, exactly the same, as I drank in the spices of his mouth. Exactly the same urges. Two men pressing against each other, pressing their hot, hard selves into each other's bodies.

Kiran kisses beautifully, both tentatively and adventurously, all rolled into one. And I, I barely knew or remembered how to kiss, my body was doing it all for me. He had his arms around my shoulders, his palms on my neck, and I spread my fingers, feeling how much of his torso I could span with my hands.

How long it went on, I don't know. A second. An eternity. Until we broke apart, breathlessly.

And until Kiran said, "You'd better go."

  


"What?" I cried. "Why?" I was filled with anguish. What had I done wrong? Or am I simply wrong? The wrong sex? The wrong race? The wrong religion? The wrong, oh God, the wrong height?

"Kiran," I said. "Can't I stay? Just a little bit?"

  


"No," he said, and he seemed agitated, so agitated that hope resurged in my heart.

  


"Please," I begged, "please don't throw me out." And I asked him what it was, was it because of my sex? My race? My height? In what ways was my body wrong?

But no, he said, no, no. "I have been with men before," he said. And, "I have been with white people before." And, "I have been with average-sized people before."

Average-sized! Average!

  


Average but not enough. Too average. _Almindelig._

  


"What then?" I pleaded and clutched at his hand. But he was already sliding off me and clinking the tea things together and moving his hand through his hair in that way he has.

"It's nothing to do with you personally," he said.

  


Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my person. While I wanted it to have everything to do with me.

"You mustn't think that anything's wrong with you," he said. "Really. Otherwise, well, otherwise I wouldn't have given in to you like I did just now."

Given in! I loved the way he said that. And he said more. He said, "I found it very hard to resist you just now. Impossible, in fact. So I didn't." He grinned sheepishly, and hope surged again. "But really, now you've got to go."

"Why?" I cried again.

  


"We'll see each other tomorrow," he said. "Not long."

  


"I don't want to go," I said.

  


"But you have got to," he said. "You see, I am expecting somebody else."

  


Somebody else! I wanted to look at the time but I don't wear a watch and there was no clock but I'm sure it was late, it was way past dinner time. "This late?" I asked. I still didn't understand. I thought he was inventing an excuse.

"Yes," he said and gave me a meaningful look. "This late."

  


Oh. Suddenly I understood. Yes. He is expecting somebody else. God, of course. Not everything revolves around me. I can see that now. He has a life. He _has_ a life. And a love life, too. How did I not notice? Where have my thoughts been?

Well, I know where they've been. Locked up inside my brain. But no longer. They were fluttering all over the room, erratically, desperately. I saw the flush on Kiran's face and the agitation in his heart, and I knew these were not for me.

"Oh," I said, "I'm gone already." And I leaped up.

  


But at the door, as he was letting me out, I couldn't withstand him. I bent down, I knelt, I knelt before him, and I kissed him again. One last time. One more time. One time. And again, he kissed me back. So he's not completely resistant. Not completely. He is awaiting somebody else, in his bed no doubt, where else, but even as he awaits this other person with a flushed face, he has space in his heart to kiss me.

To kiss.

  


So I went home and wrote this:

> Sadness; I can feel it  
> Like dried salt on my skin  
> Like departed sunshine.  
> You made it leave me  
> With your lips and moving hands,  
> But now I sit alone  
> The cold room unblinkingly empty  
> And it tastes like darkness.  
> I kneel and offer you my words:  
> My power gone, this is all I have.

  


 

Now I cannot sleep. But it doesn't matter. It's good. It's not a restless sleeplessness. It's open, it's full of life. I sit at the window, I gaze at the clouds and the few stars that are visible, I feel the earth turning and the moon pulling and the lava deep below churning, all transporting me, transporting me safely through the vast emptiness on my shifting round home.

\-----------

12   _Kiran_

  


Dearest John

  


I had a wonderful, lovely time last Tuesday. I cannot say how lovely but you know it. I count the days to your return. Filming continues but it is not the same without you, although I am seeing quite a bit of Viggo these days.

I hope your skin is not paining you too much. I enclose a little gift, just some more of that tincture, although you will have to apply it yourself now. I think of you all the time, and about how I will rub your face for you when you come back, and other things, too.

I have never known anyone like you, and that is the truth.

  


Take care, sweet John, mera dil, don't get up to too much mischief! Let me kiss you, in spirit, on your poor old eyes and on... well, you can guess where.

Much love,

Kiran

  


\---------

The End.

17 July 2002

  


If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to [lobelia40@yahoo.com](mailto:lobelia40@yahoo.com).


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